Port authority says it will be able to mitigate environmental impact
Concerns raised over planned container terminal’s effect on species’ habitat
The Montreal Port Authority said it will be able to take sufficient steps to mitigate and make up for the environmental impact of its planned Contrecoeur expansion.
On Thursday, the authority said the project has taken another step forward, as an environmental impact assessment was filed with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
Concerns have been raised about the proposed container terminal’s impact on the habitat of the Western Chorus Frog and the copper redhorse, an endangered fish.
But port authority officials say they’re confident that won’t hold up the project.
“The probability that the project will be blocked by either one or the other species is very low,” said Daniel Dagenais, the vicepresident of operations at the port authority.
The copper redhorse is the only fish that lives exclusively in Quebec. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, there are at most a few hundred left. The species is found in four southern Quebec rivers, including the St. Lawrence, between Lac St-Louis, just south of Montreal Island and Lac St-Pierre, south of Trois-Rivières.
Suitable habitats for the fish would be destroyed by dredging to create an approach area, for ships to pull up to the terminal, and berths for container ships.
Dagenais said only a small area of potential copper redhorse habitat will be affected and that there’s no evidence any of the fish are actually in the area.
“We’ve been looking for the copper redhorse for a long time and we haven’t seen it. There are some sightings, but they’re not in this particular area.”
However, the port will recreate the habitat that’s destroyed in an area where the fish is more prevalent, he said.
While the Western Chorus Frog is not an endangered species globally, according to Environment Canada, the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence–Canadian Shield population is considered threatened. Environment Canada warns that the southwestern Quebec habitat of the tiny frog (it grows to 2.5 cm in length and weighs around one gram) could disappear by 2030 if nothing is done.
In 2016, the federal environment minister, Catherine McKenna, issued an emergency protection order that shrunk an already approved development on the South Shore to protect the frog ’s habitat.
According to the environmental impact report, prepared by SNCLavalin, the main threats to the frog come from future developments at the site.
Dagenais said he doesn’t expect that to happen.
“It is very, very unlikely that even in future phases of expansion in Contrecoeur it will be affected by our projects because it’s located too far away from us,” Dagenais said.
The Port Authority plans to start construction on the new container terminal in the South Shore town of Contrecoeur in 2020. The initial phase is scheduled to be completed by 2023.
Dagenais said the authority is moving forward with the new terminal, which will increase the container capacity of the port by a third, in anticipation of future needs.
“Our current growth rate is pegged at around 3.9 per cent,” Dagenais said. However, traffic has grown faster than that over the past two years.
The Port of Montreal can currently handle the equivalent of 2.1 million containers a year, the new terminal will add 1.15 million containers to that capacity.
“We do not need to reach that maximum before planning and actually expanding the port else- where, because before reaching that point, there will be service degradation, congestion during certain peak periods of the year,” Dagenais said.
The additional capacity would not be used immediately, Dagenais said. “There will be a ramp-up.”
There will also be space at Contrecoeur for further expansions. The port authority said there’s no land left on the island of Montreal to expand the existing port.
The site, which has direct highway and railway connections was purchased between 1988 and 1992.
The port authority said the project will cost $750 million, while some of that will come from its own funds, additional financing will be needed.
“We will be looking for public financing and private financing as well,” Dagenais said.
The port authority anticipates 5,000 jobs will be created over the course of construction and 1,000 jobs will be created at the operational terminal.
The port’s expansion to the South Shore comes as industrial facilities and distribution centres for large companies are moving to the same area.
“We’ve been seeing movement towards the South Shore and off island, because there’s a lack of product and a lack of land,” said Luciano D’Iorio, managing director of Quebec Operations at real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.
The project will have to be approved by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and Fisheries and Oceans Canada before it can go ahead.
The probability that the project will be blocked by either one or the other species is very low.